The present invention relates to a new and distinct cultivar of Tagetes plant, botanically known as Tagetes hybrida, and hereinafter referred to by the name ‘09TAG1002’.
The new Tagetes plant is a product of a planned breeding program conducted by the Inventor in Higashiomi, Shiga, Japan. The objective of the breeding program is to create new long-flowering Tagetes plants with large showy inflorescences.
The new Tagetes plant originated from a cross-pollination conducted by the Inventor in Higashiomi, Shiga, Japan on May 10, 2008 of a unnamed proprietary seedling selection of Tagetes lemmonii, not patented, as the female, or seed, parent with an unidentified seedling selection of Tagetes hybrida as the male, or pollen, parent. The new Tagetes plant was discovered and selected by the Inventor as a single flowering plant from within the progeny of the stated cross-pollination in a controlled greenhouse environment in Higashiomi, Shiga, Japan on Jun. 18, 2009.
Asexual reproduction of the new Tagetes plant by vegetative cuttings since Jun. 20, 2009 in a controlled greenhouse environment in Higashiomi, Shiga, Japan, has shown that the unique features of this new Tagetes plant are stable and reproduced true to type in successive generations.